Yesterday’s NHL draft lottery was a disaster for most of the worst teams in the NHL as three teams, not in the bottom three, ended up winning the lottery, pushing the teams that most need talent back three slots. With New Jersey (fourth-worst record), Philadelphia (13th worst record) and Dallas (seventh-worst record) winning the top three spots in the 2017 NHL Draft this year, teams like Colorado and Vancouver end up with their worst-case scenarios. The Avalanche will draft fourth and the Canucks fifth.
The new team, the expansion Las Vegas Golden Knights got no luck either. The team, which had an 88 percent chance of a top-five pick, ended up sixth. The team had hopes of drafting the face of their franchise if they could get high enough. The hope was the team could snag either Nolan Patrick or Nico Hischier. Instead the team will now need to look at the second-tier of options, according to Las Vegas Sun’s Jesse Granger.
While Las Vegas will look at multiple players at No. 6, it is believed the Golden Knights will focus on forwards in the first-round of the draft as they are expected to collect lots of defense and goaltending in the expansion draft and be desperate for scoring.
They will look at several prospects in that second tier, including Windsor Spitfire’s center Gabriel Vilardi from the OHL, Mississauga Steelheads wing Owen Tippett of the OHL, Eden Prairie (Minn.) High School’s Casey Mittelstadt and Tri-City Americans center Michael Rasmussen of the WHL. Vilardi is a 6-foot-3, 200-pound center who uses his size advantage to dominate. He is coming off a season in which he had 29 goals and 32 assists in just 49 contests this season. His lack of penalty minutes signal that he knows how to use his size to his advantage. Tippett is coming off a big year in which he scored 44 goals in 62 games and is known to be exceptionally quick. However, defense is an issue. Mittelstadt won Mr. Hockey in Minnesota, but is tough to judge after playing against lower-level competition. Rasmussen is the biggest of the four as he is 6-foot-5 and tallied 32 goals in the WHL.
- The Buffalo Sabres interviewed Columbus Blue Jackets’ assistant general manager Bill Zito Saturday, as reported by TSN’s Pierre LeBrun. Zito has been the Blue Jackets’ AGM since August of 2013. According to the team’s website, Zito helps manage contract negotiations, scouting and player evaluation and salary cap management and is also the general manager of the AHL’s Lake Erie Monsters. The team has also shown interest in Los Angeles Kings’ assistant GM Mike Futa.